Week 7 (Aug 2 – 8) – Muscle Distribution Catalog
Muscle Distribution is an exciting new venture that’s hard to sum up with words alone, but if you dig into the catalog, you find a shape that’s more well-defined than any mission statement. Liz is keeping it hot for us. From Muscle’s website: Muscle is a new film distribution company with a heavy repertory slant from historian, programmer, and filmmaker Elizabeth Purchell. Borne out of an understanding of the role that accessibility plays in shaping cultural histories, we’re dedicated to complicating and expanding the canon by shining a light on works that either never received their proper due or that have unjustly faded into obscurity, and championing uncompromising new works by some of today’s most exciting underground filmmakers. We love scrappy, misfit films that don’t fit into any particular box.
While Jennifer Welles is credited as the director of this film, which she claims is about her life, Joe Sarno was really guiding things. That said, for years after this, Inside… films would be all over adult as a direct result of this movie. The others—nearly all of them—are just compilations. This is the real thing. This is the blueprint, which would be further inked and made art by Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle.
The framing device is pure nostalgic indulgence as internationally beloved adult icon Jennifer Welles is hanging up her spurs. But before she rides off into the sunset, she’s gotta go out with one final, earth-shattering bang. As a driver chauffeurs her toward her ultimate unfulfilled desire, the movie plays out as a cinematic swan song. We’re treated to a retrospective of her most outrageous carnal exploits ranging from early explorations with female partners to a jaw-dropping encounter right inside a movie theater with a projectionist played by future cannibal film star Robert Kerman.
The end titles say:
“On a cold winter’s evening Jennifer Welles fulfilled her greatest desire and fantasy by being the sole female at a party where she engaged in sexual intercourse with seventy-three men.
All the scenes in this film are true and accurate representations of my actual experiences.
Jennifer Welles”
Miss Welles is gorgeous, even in her later years here. Knowing me, the nerdy dental assistant (Cheri Baines) is more my speed. Well, if she was really shrill, of course. My real lust is for the scenes of 42nd Street, marquees showing Deep Throat, The Devil In Miss Jones, The Trouble With Young Stuff and Welles’ movie Little Orphan Sammy.
Legend had it that Welles left the industry abruptly in 1978 after she married a wealthy fan. The Rialto Report wrote, “One day, when Manny got home, Jennifer had an announcement. Philip had asked her to get married. He would give her everything she wanted. A beautiful house, clothes, spending money, anything. Anything except freedom, that is. Manny said that Philip didn’t want her to have any contact with her current life. She would get divorced, she would move away from New York, and she would cut off all ties from everyone she knew.” The whole post—and podcasts—are worth checking out: a sad story about a literal goddess.
